t had been offered to his
companion. One blow from his trunk struck the poor man to the earth; and
without troubling himself about the horse, who galloped off at full
speed, the elephant thrust his tusks into the hunter's body, and flung
him high into the air. The unfortunate man was instantly killed. After
this act, the elephant walked gently up to his bleeding companion, and
regardless of the volleys with which he was assailed from the hunters,
he caressed her, and aided her in reaching a shelter in the thicket.
A tame elephant had a great affection for a dog; and those who visited
the place where the animal was exhibited, used to pull the dog's ears,
to make him yelp, on purpose to see what the elephant would do. On one
occasion, when this cruel sport was going on at the opposite side of the
barn where the elephant was kept, she no sooner heard the voice of her
friend in distress, than she began to feel the boards of the partition
which separated her and the dog, and then, striking them a heavy blow,
made them fly in splinters. After this she looked through the hole she
had made, which was large enough to admit her entire body, with such
threatening gestures, that the miserable fools who were teasing the dog
concluded that it would not pay very well to continue the sport.
At an exhibition of a menagerie in one of our principal cities, not long
since, when the crowd of spectators was the greatest, a little girl, who
had fed the elephant with sundry cakes and apples from her bag, drew out
her ivory card-case, which fell unobserved in the saw-dust of the ring.
At the close of the ring performances, the crowd opened to let the
elephant pass to his recess; but instead of proceeding as usual, he
turned aside and thrust his trunk in the midst of a group of ladies and
gentlemen, who, as might be expected, were so much alarmed that they
scattered in every direction. The keeper, at this moment, discovered
that the animal had something in his trunk. Upon examination, he found
it to be the young lady's card-case, which the elephant picked up, and
it now appeared that he was only seeking out the owner.
A person in the island of Ceylon, who lived near a place where elephants
were daily led to water, and often sat at the door of his house, used
occasionally to give one of these animals some fig leaves, a kind of
food which elephants are said to be very fond of. One day this man took
it into his head to play one of the elephants
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